ZUDACOMICS.COM INVITES WEB COMICS CREATORS AND JOURNALISTS TO CELEBRATE SITE LAUNCH WITH HAPPY HOUR AND LIVE SUBMISSIONS EVENT

(October 24, 2007; New York, NY) —Zudacomics.com, the first ever web comics imprint from DC Comics, will go live on Tuesday, October 30th, 2007, it was announced today by Richard Bruning, DC Comics Creative Director, SVP.

With the launch of the site, visitors will immediately begin to shape and define the Zuda experience. Online submissions will begin, allowing aspiring web comics creators to submit their work directly to the Zuda editorial team. The Zuda web community will be invited to vote on the first ever Zudacomics.com competition, choosing one from the ten webcomics offerings. In addition, all visitors will be able to read the first ever Zudacomics.com Instant Winner, which will have been selected by Zuda editorial in preparation for the launch.

To celebrate the launch of this ground-breaking site, Ron Perazza Director, Creative Services, and Kwanza Johnson, Zuda editor, are inviting aspiring web comics creators and journalists to attend a special launch event in New York City on Tuesday, October 30. As Perazza explains in an e-mail sent to the Zuda community:

If you’re going to be in the New York City area (and are 21 years of age or older) on Launch Day (Tuesday, 10/30) then come on and join the Zuda staff for the Zuda Comics Launch Event and Live Submissions…um…Extravaganza! Face it, you can submit online any day of the week, but for this one night only, from 5:30 – 6:30 PM, Ron, Kwanza and Nika will be reviewing pitches live! Bring your best! And don’t worry, if you can’t make it at that time for the next couple of hours we’ll still have a drop box where you can leave your submission and we’ll have some laptops where you can submit "ye olde fashioned" way – digitally! Where will this magic happen? At one of the most magical places on Earth, of course.

Daniel “Julius Marx” Pickett has been around toys his whole life. The first line he ever collected was Mego’s World’s Greatest Super Heroes line back in the 70s. He has been surrounded by collectables ever since.
In 1999 he was confounded by a lack of information and news about some of his favorite toy lines he was collecting. Since he couldn’t find the information he decided to pursue it himself thinking other people might also be interested in the same news. He started writing a weekly column on the toy industry and action figure for a toy news site and in a years time he tripled the sites daily traffic with his updates, reviews and product features.
He built relationships with every major toy manufacturer and many sculptors, painters and mold makers. He grew his hobby into a world wide expertise that the industry has embraced.
In 2004 he teamed up with his toy buddy Jason “ToyOtter” Geyer and they created their own website www.ActionFigureInsider.com.
Daniel has been quoted in both industry and mass media press outlets. Over the years Daniel and AFi have been sought out as experts in the field. Daniel was regularly featured on “Attack of the Show” on the G4 network as the primary contributor to their “Mint On Card” segment, and our front page has been linked to from USA Today’s
“Pop Candy” Blog twice. Daniel’s content has also been featured on MSNBC.com,
Wired.com, Fark.com, Boing-Boing, Gizmodo.com, Ain’t It Cool News, the Official
Star Wars blog, Geekologie, G4, CNet and Toy Fare magazine, among many
others. He has consulted on toy lines, books, documentaries and TV shows.
But all of that really just sounds snooty and “tootin’ his own horn” – the long and short of it is that Daniel loves toys and he LOVES talking about them.